


i'll bless my homeland

by illmatchtheminrenown



Category: An American in Paris - Gershwin/Lucas, Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, World War II, musical crossovers because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 13:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10967799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illmatchtheminrenown/pseuds/illmatchtheminrenown
Summary: Wars never end, but Anya finds ways to live on.





	i'll bless my homeland

Anya still has nightmares.

It has been more than twenty-five years since her she watched her family die horribly in that cold, dark basement room. It has been more than fifteen years since her full memories have returned - both a blessing and a curse. She can still see the flashes of gunfire, see her father fall, (he died first, that is one of those awful details that had been long forgotten, but is forgotten no more), hear her mother and sisters scream. She can smell the gunpowder and the dirt and the blood, _her sisters’ blood._

She can feel the hard wall she and Marie scrabbled against, trying to get out, and the way a door opened in all the chaos and an arm yanked her out harshly and a voice told her to run, and how she did, despite her wounds. 

(She’s thought a lot about that arm and that voice over the years, and it wasn’t until that same hand gripped her arm with a much more sinister intent that she put the pieces together. She hopes he has found peace with himself and with his family and legacy now, just as she has).

Time has made the nightmares more sparse, but they still come, ghosts dancing at the edges of her memory, the faces of her family mutating into rotting demons, lurid fantasies of curses and worse, and that damn basement smell - damp and dirt and sweat, an earthy, ordinary smell made into the scent of nightmares.

This is why it hardly surprised her when she woke up with a gasp on this particular night. Her eyes hadn’t even adjusted to being open again when the figure next to her sat up with a wince. 

“Nightmare again?” Dmitry asked in quiet Russian. Anya only nodded. He opened his arms, as strong and warm as they were nearly twenty years ago, and she crawled into them, settling back against his back and propped up against the wall of the bunker. 

She can’t help a small smile as a memory crosses her mind: a night like this, many years ago, where she had been woken from stressful slumber by a haunting nightmare. Then, she had expected to recover alone, but instead had only a moment to herself before her companion, disheveled in pajamas and a tank top (a sight she still remembered quite vividly), had burst in and had comforted her with a story that finally brought her back to herself. 

“What are you laughing at, Your Highness?” Dmitry whispered, grinning against her cheek.

“Just remembering another nightmare I had a long time ago. A very handsome scoundrel came to my room while I was in my nightdress - can you believe it? I wonder what ever became of him?” she teased back.

As Dmitry pressed a kiss into her hair, Anya relaxes and looks around them at the mix of rebels and refugees pressed into the small underground safe room.

When terror came to their homeland, Anya and Dmitry had been too young to protest, too young to defend anything or anyone that needed defending. So when terror came to their second home, they were more prepared than anyone, having already seen a regime violently fall. They packed up Alexandre and Helene, sent them to the countryside to live anonymously with Vlad and Lily, spread a rumor that their family had gone abroad to America, and slipped into a new life as simple Parisian cafe owners by day and members of _la Resistance_ by night. Dmitry’s forgery skills had never been put to better use, while Anya taught the women how to fight when physically outmatched. The cruel brown uniforms that filled their cafe day and night still brought fear and anger to her heart, but she tamped it down, using every bit of diplomatic tact and royal grace to keep a steady hand and smile.

It was in this capacity that the pair found themselves this particular evening, serving as escorts for a crucial informant known simply as Jacques who was bringing back vital information from the heart of the Vichy regime. As Dmitry murmured comfort in Russian, Jacques stirred next to them, sitting up slightly. Anya tapped Dmitry’s knee, signalling they were no longer alone.

“Sorry, did we wake you?” Dmitry asked, slipping easily into French. After so many years, the Russian street rat had learned to speak French as fluently as his court-educated wife. Jacques shrugged nonchalantly.

“It’s alright, I wasn’t sleeping much anyway,” he admitted. Anya took a closer look as he sat up fully and ran a hand through his hair. With such a reputation for being close to important members of the regime, she had expected someone older, more distinguished or powerful-seeming. The man before them, however, was barely more than a boy - a young man in his twenties with a youthful face and the kind of impeccable hands and hair that denoted a man of a higher social class. Curious, Anya decided to test that theory.

“What, a damp bunker isn’t quite the accommodations you’re used to?” she asked lightly. Jacques snorted.

“Hardly. My family -” He stopped short, realizing his mistake. “Who are you? Do you know me?” he demanded. 

Anya shook her head.

“Relax, kid. Let’s say I’ve spent my fair share of time among the upper crust. It’s the way you move that gives you away. It’s something we can’t ever shake,” she explained. Jacques’s eyes narrowed.

“We? You said ‘we’?” he asked suspiciously. Dmitry started to speak, but Anya put a hand on his arm.

“I did,” she answered calmly. “But that was another lifetime. Far away. And very long ago.” 

Dmitry looked at the young Frenchman closely. “Are you afraid, Jacques?” 

There was a long pause before his gaze dropped and he nodded. Anya took his hand.

“Jacques. Look at me,” she ordered, a hint of imperial steel in her gentle command. He obeyed. 

“We are all afraid. See the girls, over in that corner? That’s Sophie and Collette. Their parents were taken away, and they have to get to a safe house in England.”

“And there?” Dmitry added, pointing at a middle-aged man curled around his gun in the corner. “Monsieur Lassell. His entire street was destroyed by the bombs. Now he’s one of our street fighters, always armed and ready, nothing to live for except the hope of victory.”

“What about you two? You don’t seem afraid,” Jacques answered.

“This is not our first war,” Anya said calmly. “But yes, I am afraid. And I would be more afraid without Dima at my side.” Jacques looked up, startled, glancing between the two of them.

“That’s not a French name.”

“See, Anya? I told you the French were slow on the uptake,” Dmitry grinned. 

“We are French now, Jacques. As French as anyone here. But we weren’t always. We were Russian, when Russia was still Russia. And now you know our names. We trust you will not abuse that knowledge,” she added severely.

Jacques shook his head, suddenly beaming.

“Russian? How very exciting! You must tell me all about it! Er… some day,” he added, glancing at his watch. “We all ought to get a little more rest before the appointed hour, yes?” 

As they settled back in, the young man propped himself back up.

“Henri,” he whispered across the space. It took Anya a moment to comprehend what he meant, but then she extended her hand to shake his.

“A pleasure, Henri. Now - get some sleep.”

Such was not the first mission, nor the last, that Anya and Dmitry undertook. And with each day came more fear of being caught, or worse, being traced back to their real identities, and their children along with them. But for their adopted homeland - the land that had adopted _them_ , a pair of unwanted orphans with nothing to go back to and more baggage than they cared to admit - they would do worse than this. 

************************

As crowds of thousands and thousands surged through the streets of Paris, tearing down every reminder of the Nazi regime, a middle-aged Russian couple stood in the doorway of a destroyed cafe, tears in both their eyes, whispering a long-forgotten refrain into the air.

_I’ll bless my homeland till I die..._

**Author's Note:**

> I blame the thirstsquad for this one. And I did change canon a little bit when it comes to one character, because I think they could have done better (sorry Terrance McNally). But I've been meaning to write Anastasia fic for a while, so enjoy!


End file.
